55+ min ago  (713+ words) Women are nearly twice as likely as men to develop Alzheimer’s disease, but scientists haven’t locked down what drives that disparity. New research at UC San Diego seeks to help doctors understand why. “There’s a big open question mark around…...

1+ day, 19+ hour ago  (942+ words) California’s sand dunes are vanishing. Their disappearance could mean more floods and damage from storms in Santa Barbara. Coastal sand dunes — mounds of sand along beaches formed by wind-blown sediment — play a crucial role in shielding coastal communities like Santa…...

2+ day, 16+ hour ago  (673+ words) Santa Barbara News-Press It will be a consequential summer for energy policy in Santa Barbara County. Currently, you can drill for oil, but you can’t put a solar farm in the same industrial site. That is set to reverse with…...

3+ day, 14+ hour ago  (421+ words) Red panda cubs were born at the Santa Barbara Zoo for the first time since 1993, marking a milestone in the zoo’s conservation efforts. The twin cubs were born on July 2 to first-time red panda parents Ruby and Raj. “These cubs…...

4+ day, 14+ hour ago  (913+ words) Apartment and condo-dwellers in California may soon be able to plug portable solar panels into an ordinary wall socket on their balconies and reduce their monthly electricity bill. Legislation reducing obstacles to so-called “balcony solar” has passed the California Senate…...

2+ week, 3+ day ago  (958+ words) Our summer fundraising campaign has begun! Every dollar helps us grow our local public-service reporting. It’s 7:30 a.m. on a gray Wednesday and I sit at my desk beneath the familiar June gloom, wondering when the next big wildfire will start....

2+ week, 3+ day ago  (412+ words) Our summer fundraising campaign has begun! Every dollar helps us grow our local public-service reporting. The Santa Barbara Zoo has reopened the Richard Block Conservation Hub with a new focus on two endangered Californian species: the western snowy plover and…...

3+ week, 2+ day ago  (314+ words) Our summer fundraising campaign has begun! Every dollar helps us grow our local public-service reporting. A vegetation fire is burning on the 1200 block of North San Marcos Road in Santa Barbara County. Pitch in to our crowdfunding campaign to help…...

3+ week, 5+ day ago  (820+ words) Our summer fundraising campaign has begun! Every dollar helps us grow our local public-service reporting. It’s a cruel summer for seabirds on Santa Barbara’s South Coast. Food being pushed further away from shore, caused by a strong marine heat wave,…...

3+ week, 6+ day ago  (658+ words) Ellwood School just became the latest from Goleta Union to go solar. “Today’s kindergarteners are going to grow up in buildings that run on the sun, and they’re going to think that’s completely normal,” said Susan Epstein, a former Goleta…...